


Open Water

by forgetyouinsiberia



Category: Suits (TV)
Genre: M/M, pretty sure i failed the prompt, suits meme prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-27
Updated: 2014-09-27
Packaged: 2018-02-19 00:36:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,962
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2367785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/forgetyouinsiberia/pseuds/forgetyouinsiberia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harvey exhales an exhausted breath, struggles to keep his eyelids open, tries to keep his gaze on the other man. His eyes flutter shut after a few moments, and he promises himself he’ll just rest for a few moments--that he’ll deflnitely crack an eyelid when he hears movement.</p>
<p>And then the world is silent.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Open Water

**Author's Note:**

> Based on a prompt from Suits Meme. “Mike and Harvey are together and Mike gets raped. Harvey knows about it, by way of actually somehow seeing it happen. It’s pretty undeniable actually, but Mike denies it to death. He keeps saying it was consensual, gets angry when someone tries to suggest otherwise, and is angry Harvey isn’t angry about his ‘cheating’. Harvey is pretty sure how to treat Mike and freaking the fuck out.”
> 
> I’m actually pretty sure I failed at this, although I started out writing it with intentions to follow the prompt. Even so, it did get finished...so this is it.

The water dripping in the bathroom shower is enough to drive Harvey nuts. Granted, he already feels like he’s stuck inside a fucking horror movie, so why not add the sound of something to make him completely fall into the abyss he’s been sucked into lately.

It’s late. The last time he looked at the clock, it was ticking near four AM. He’s not sure what time it is now, just knows that the sky isn’t quite as dark as it was earlier. He glances down at Mike, watches the blonde man stare back at him from where he’s seated next to the balcony doors. It’s scary how normal this feels now. 

Harvey exhales an exhausted breath, struggles to keep his eyelids open, tries to keep his gaze on the other man. His eyes flutter shut after a few moments, and he promises himself he’ll just rest for a few moments--that he’ll definitely crack an eyelid when he hears movement.

And then the world is silent. 

.,.

It was a Tuesday. Harvey tries to forget, he genuinely does. But he can’t. He wishes more than anything that he could forget, because then their lives could just be good again and they could be happy...but he can’t forget, because his heart is literally in a million pieces and it seems to keep breaking more every single day. It gets harder to breathe, and even harder to climb out of the hell they’re living in. 

It was a Tuesday.

He was at home. He’d ordered in dinner. Mike was supposed to make sure a patent was processed through before he came back to Harvey’s penthouse. Harvey was getting the place ready for their night in. They were going to eat in--he might’ve had an idea about eating a banana split off of Mike’s chest--and then watch a movie. Mike would’ve insisted on some sort of comedy, and Harvey would’ve eventually let him have his way after a bit of harmless begging. They would’ve cuddled--something Harvey never used to do, but Mike has gotten him to do a lot of things he swore he’d never do--and eventually ended up in bed. 

But Mike didn’t show up. And it was a Tuesday. A regular Tuesday, just like any other. But he didn’t show.

Harvey waited up, tried to keep the food warm. He watched out the windows, kept the news on after a while to see if any kind of accident had taken place. But there was nothing. 

And then, of course, there was the text message. Come meet me it said. At that point, Harvey was kind-of pissed that it was the first he was hearing from Mike, but he figured if the kid was texting him, he was probably drunk somewhere with one of his idiot friends.So he went out looking for the address attached to the text. 

Except, the place he was led to wasn’t a bar or a club, and Mike wasn’t slumped over a bar stool with one beer too many in his hand. Instead, Harvey found himself in the Meat Packing district, looking around warehouses and becoming more worried by the minute. He was sure he had the wrong address--and was becoming more irritated by the second--when he was jumped.

He didn’t see faces. He didn’t even see shadows. All he knew was that he was hit hard across the back of his shoulders with something forcefully enough to knock him down. They kicked him a few times, split his lip and left a nasty cut on his forehead. And then they picked him up and drug him into one of the empty warehouses. He tried to fight back--every thought in his brain told him to do so--and he was sure they were going to lay him out and have their way because he couldn’t find a way to breathe, much less move. But no. What they did was far worse. 

“You don’t look like a fag,” one of them said. It was dark, and he couldn’t really see, but the guy towered over him. 

“I don’t know. He looks like an expensive cock sucker to me,” his buddy muttered. Harvey had spotted the crowbar in his hands at that point. 

A flashlight blinded Harvey, and he winced. Stretch--that’s what Harvey named the taller one--laughed.

“Yep. He’s the one in the pictures. Get ‘im up.”

The one with the crowbar pulled him up into a seated position, and Harvey cringed and groaned with every movement. He still couldn’t see much, but he saw...something, further into the long room. Crowbar dug a muzzle into Harvey’s spine and then Stretch cracked the flashlight across the side of Harvey’s head--for good measure, he’d said.

Harvey should’ve fought. He should’ve moved and tried to take the gun. But he could barely breathe. His chest hurt like hell. 

Stretch crossed the room--a low, swinging light came on, literally out of the horror movies--and that’s when he saw Mike. 

They’d beaten the crap out of him, and for as much as Harvey was hurting in that moment, it was clear he’d fared better than Mike. Stretch kicked Mike in his ribs, where he was curled over on his side. Mike whined, tried to move away. But his hands were tied behind his back, and moving away was futile. 

“He said you’d enjoy watching,” Crowbar seethed into Harvey’s ear. Harvey tried to move away, but the crowbar came around him, its jagged edge digging into his neck where the end of it was in in the guy’s fist. “Don’t make me shoot you, because I will.”

Harvey believed him.

Stretch untied Mike, and then stripped him. It was clear that he was pretty incapacitated from the beating, though he tried to fight somewhat. It wasn’t until Stretch was fighting him out of his boxers though that Mike seemed to find a second wind. He fought earnestly, scrambling as best he could against the man, though he couldn’t get anywhere.

Harvey got daring, tried to get away. Crowbar shot him in his side--barely more than a graze, but enough to make a point--and threatened further damage if Harvey moved again. And so he sat, gasping for air and shaking with rage both at himself for being too fearful of death to move, and at the man behind him continuously digging the gun harder into his back the more upset Harvey became. He hated himself in those moments, because he told Mike to fight back, to pull a bigger gun. But he had nothing. 

If he had thought to fight when the two men traded places, it would’ve been futile anyway because when Stretch walked up to them--and Harvey had to gather every ounce of strength he had to not fight to run to Mike--Crowbar choked him even tighter, and then when he let him go and Harvey was curled over on the ground, they both stomped on his back. It became harder to remember past that. He knew Stretch straddled his spine, pinning him to the floor, and he held the crowbar against Harvey’s throat, laughed when Harvey choked and struggled against him. It was only too clear that it was all a sick game to them. 

.,.

Harvey doesn’t remember much after he lost consciousness the first time. There’s flashes--he recalls finding his way to Mike after the guys had left. He remembers saying they should go to the hospital, and Mike’s determinedness that they weren’t doing any such thing. 

Somehow he managed to get up. He’s not entirely sure how--and he’s really not sure how Mike got up--but he made it to his feet, and they made it out. Still, there was no way they could both make the six mile walk from the warehouse to Harvey’s apartment, so he figures at some point he must’ve tossed Mike’s arm over his shoulder and drug him through the streets several blocks until they could hail a cab. 

He doesn’t remember the cab driver, or the ride back to his place. Mike says the cabbie was clearly and outwardly worried about them, but didn’t argue with them. Fortunately--or ironically, Harvey isn’t quite sure which--they weren’t robbed, so Harvey had money for the driver. Mike says Harvey paid the man, but he doesn’t recall it so he can’t be sure. 

The next thing Harvey remembers is being in the bathroom in the penthouse with the mirrors fogged up from a blisteringly hot shower filling the room with steam while he cleaned Mike’s cuts. He’d thought the steam would help his lungs--he remembers that much. And then Mike was in the shower, scrubbing every bit of evidence away, and Harvey was curled up on the floor outside the bathroom gasping, trying to tell himself that everything was going to be okay, that they’d figure out a way through this. But truth be told, he wasn’t sure they would make it at all. 

.,.

Mike’s entire demeanor changed with the rise of the sun the following morning. Harvey hadn’t slept the night before. He’d called Donna to tell her they both wouldn’t be in, and then tried to clean himself up as best he could. He knew Donna would be around first thing full of questions, but he couldn’t really answer her questions covered in blood. 

Mike barely slept. He woke up sometime after six, didn’t say much for the first few hours. Harvey made breakfast, but neither of them touched it. Mike eventually drug himself into the room and made espresso for both of them before he slumped into the bedroom and shut the door behind him. Harvey didn’t try to go after him. 

When Donna showed up, Harvey expected Mike to stay in the bedroom. Even so, he came into the room and told her that it was his fault that Harvey was hurt. Even Donna could see that he was worse off than Harvey though, and she was wary to press for information Instead, she told Harvey she’d field calls for him and to make sure he crafted a decent alibi for Jessica. Harvey was just grateful she didn’t press for too much information. 

.,.

“I wanted it.” 

The fucking words are imprinted on Harvey’s psyche. Mike’s been insistent on that fact since Harvey first tried to mention it that morning after Donna left. Harvey is pretty sure he’s either had a psychotic break and gone nuts, or that he’s in severe shock. He can’t even question Mike on that though, because the subject is entirely off limits when Mike isn’t interested in it. Instead, he tells Harvey he’s fine--even gets pissed at him when Harvey looks at him like he feels pity for him instead of being enraged at the suggestion of infidelity. 

Somehow they end up in a twisted cycle of disconnect and sleepless nights. During the days, Mike doesn’t want to talk to him, even goes as far as telling their friends he cheated on Harvey and the older man doesn’t love him enough to care. Then at nights, he refuses to get near the bed. When Harvey sleeps in it, Mike moves to the floor. Other nights, Harvey just stays on the couch. 

.,.

“This has to change,” Donna tells Harvey one morning about two weeks after the assault. They’re sitting in his office, each nursing a hot coffee. Harvey still isn’t back to working full days, though mostly due to the fact that he doesn’t really pass for presentable. Even so, he returns paperwork and makes phone calls in apology to his missed appointments.

“I’m well aware,” Harvey comments back to her. 

“It’s not healthy, Harvey. The kid is all but bragging at this point,” Donna insists. “It’s bordering on disturbing.” 

Harvey glares at her. “What do you want me to do, Donna? I can’t force him to accept this any faster than where he’s at.” 

Donna scowls at him, but she doesn’t press the issue. She sips from her coffee, stares at the floor. 

.,.

Its after midnight when Harvey leaves the firm. He sticks around for briefs he’s proofing--at least that’s what he tells everyone, including Mike. But really, he has no interest in arguing with the younger man, so he figures it’s just easier to hang around until the puppy is asleep before he goes home. 

Ray is on the curb when Harvey walks out of the firm. The two men share a nod as Harvey gets into the car, but neither of them speaks. Communication has been pretty stagnant ever since he and Mike got into a fight on the ride to work a week earlier. Mike said a lot of hurtful things--he’s been doing that a lot lately anyway, but that was in front of Ray. Granted, it wasn’t as though Ray didn’t know at least some of what Mike said; it was the fact that he seemed to have developed a total disregard for Harvey’s feelings ninety-five percent of the time. 

The drive is silent. Harvey stares dazedly out the window of his door. It’s a practice he’s only taken up recently because he doesn’t know how to start a conversation with Ray at this point. 

When they reach Harvey’s building, the only exchange is about what time Harvey wants to be picked up in the morning, before he gets out of the car. He nods to the doorman on his way up through the doors into the building, and then he heads straight for the elevator. The ride up is quick, but he drags lazily through the hallway to his door.

When he crosses the threshold into the apartment, he expects it to be dark. Instead, the sitting room lights are on and Mike is sitting on the couch with a glass of scotch in his hand. Harvey is slightly surprised--Mike generally doesn’t have the taste for whiskey. 

“Something wrong?” Harvey asks nervously. He can’t help but notice the somber expression on Mike’s face.

The younger man tosses back the last of the alcohol in his glass and then stands up. He settles the glass on the table. 

“Mike?” 

Mike looks up at him--blue on hazel--and just stares. He says nothing for well over a minute, and Harvey can’t help but wonder what’s running through his head. Mostly though, he’s hoping the other man will finally admit to what happened. 

“You and I are done,” Mike says softly. His voice is non-combative, monotonous. 

Harvey opens his mouth, tries to find the words to respond to that statement...but he’s not sure they exist. Everything he and Mike were, all that they grew out of and created in the process of falling into one another, was shattered and then scavenged. He’s not sure he’s capable of making Mike change his mind, regardless of how hard he tries. So he just nods. 

.,. .,.

Mike remembers that night. He remembers the things Harvey doesn’t. He remembers every detail, because of his god-damned memory, including the things he shouldn’t because of his concussion. 

He remembers saying he liked it. He remembers their determination to make him orgasm, even though he didn’t want to. He remembers all of it. 

The thing is though, Harvey wants him to act like it was something that it wasn’t. Harvey makes it out to their friends that something terribly awful happened in that warehouse. Mike is pretty sure he watched the worst of it though when they damn-near strangled Harvey. After all, he enjoyed what happened on that warehouse floor. 

Even so, it doesn’t really explain away his flinching when the other guys at the firm pat him on the shoulder. On the other hand, he thinks hes perfectly entitled to get pissed when Rachel and Donna try and talk to him about that night, because they look at him the way Harvey does. He really doesn’t fucking get Harvey’s thought process.

He let two other guys fuck him in FRONT of Harvey, and the man acts like he feels sorry for Mike instead of pissed off. They’ve been together for eight fucking months. 

So yeah, Mike brags about it at work, because he really doesn’t understand the logic in Harvey fucking Specter’s head about what happened in that warehouse. So those guys were a little rough. So what? 

.,.

He gets sick of Harvey’s determined nature for him to admit something that didn’t happen. He’s tried arguing with the older man about it, but it gets neither of them anywhere other than pissed off, and then Mike really just really wants to rip Harvey’s head off because Harvey’s insistence that Mike is wrong about what happened in that room makes him have bad dreams about it. Harvey’s the one twisting the knife. 

So he breaks up with him. 

It doesn’t really work the way Mike expects it to, though. He’s already given up his apartment and Harvey had the last of his things moved after that night, so he’s kind-of stuck living in Harvey’s loft in the meantime. Granted, Trevor offers him a place to stay when he finds out, but Mike isn’t really interested staying with the one person he knows won’t be helpful in the current situation. 

He sleeps on Rachel’s couch for a few nights while she’s away at school. There’s an open place in her building and he puts in for it. 

He makes Harvey put him back in the associates pool and blatantly refuses to work with him. The few times Harvey actually tries to get him to do work for him, Mike either passes it off or seeks out other work and refuses the paperwork, screwing over Harvey just to piss him off. Mike figures he deserves a taste of his own medicine anyway. It’s Harvey’s fault that things are the way they are anyway.

.,.

Shit finally hits the fan just over a month after that night. Mike is sleeping on the couch when Harvey returns from a late morning run. When the older man steps into the apartment though, the yelling coming from Mike is enough to make Harvey think someone is actually in the apartment with him. But when Harvey steps into the living room, the only one in there is Mike. 

He wakes Mike from the obvious nightmare, but before he can ask what was going on, Mike walks away from him. Harvey huffs. 

He leaves the situation unresolved for a bit, heads to his room for a shower. 

Half an hour later, he’s dressed in a pair of dark-wash blue jeans and an ivory henley over a navy blue Calvin Klein button-down. He walks into the kitchen to make himself coffee. Mike is standing in front of the toaster staring down at a box of cereal. 

Harvey shouldn’t even bother to open his mouth. He knows he shouldn’t. Mike will only get more pissed off at him and tell him to fuck off or drop dead, or something to that effect. In a twisted way, Harvey’s used to it. But he can’t help himself. 

“You know continuing to deny anything is wrong is only hurting you. Everyone else is entirely aware of what really happened in that room but you.”

Mike huffs, growls under his breath as he rolls his neck. Harvey’s sure he’s probably rolling his eyes too. 

“You are a fucking idiot,” Mike mutters under his breath as the toast pops up. He grabs it and settles it on a plate, scrapes butter across it before taking a bite. 

“Takes one to know one,” Harvey comments back. It’s childish, but he’s determined to get the other man to say something.

Mike’s shoulders shake with rage. He throws the toast he’s holding on the counter, turns around glares at Harvey. He opens his mouth, only to close it. 

“You’re a stupid fuckhead,” Mike says before turning on his heel and heading into the living room, towards the door. 

“What the hell are you avoiding admitting?!” Harvey yells back Mike angrily as he chases after him. He knows he shouldn’t, but he can’t help it. This has been coming for weeks. “Everybody knows!” 

“Everybody knows what I want them to know!” Mike growls back. “And you don’t know shit!” 

“Oh really? What do I not know?” Harvey asks haughtily. Mike gulps, clenches his jaw at Harvey. After a minute, he looks away from the older man and shakes his head, walks towards the door. 

“Really!?” Harvey calls after him. “That’s it?”

Mike whips his head back, glares at the older man. His fists are clenched at his sides, and Harvey isn’t entirely sure what it is that’s stopping the younger man from throwing him to the floor and hitting him. He’s that pissed. 

“You really want to know?” Mike asks in a growl. “Seriously??”

Harvey waves his hands out wildly, gesturing at the apparent lack of knowledge Mike claims he doesn’t have. 

“What?”

Mike halts, stares at Harvey once more, and its in those moments that Harvey sees the hesitance. There’s a mess of information that’s locked behind Mike’s eyes, something he won’t say--hasn’t said in all these weeks. And it’s right there on the edge of his conscious. 

Harvey exhales a deep breath, rounds his couch. He gestures to the other end of it for Mike as he sits down. After a few moments, Mike follows and sits down across from Harvey wordlessly. The two men exchange a glance, but Mike doesn’t speak for a bit more. When he finally opens his mouth, he’s staring at the floor. 

“We were supposed to meet up that night,” Mike comments. “And I wanted to grab a box from my loft--get the last of the stuff out of it. Trevor texted me that morning and asked if we could meet up. I wasn’t going to go, but then I was over there.....” Mike pauses, shakes his head. 

“Trevor never showed,” Harvey guesses. 

Mike shakes his head again. 

“He texted me after I got to the bar and said he’d gotten a last-minute overnight shift at his new job in Queens. I figured I’d get a drink anyway since I was already there.”

Mike stands from his seat, walks out of the room into the kitchen. Harvey sits on the couch for a few moments longer, but follows after Mike when he doesn’t immediately return. He finds the blond man filling a glass with water. Harvey is slightly surprised. He half-expects the puppy to be gulping down alcohol to tell this story. Harvey could sure use some. 

Mike tilts a glass towards Harvey in askance. Harvey nods. Mike grabs another and fills it with tap water before edging the glass towards the older man. Harvey picks it up, takes a long sip as Mike does. 

“I don’t know how those guys found me,” Mike says honestly as he returns his glass to the counter, stares into it. He runs a finger around the rim and the glass hums just slightly. “All I know is I left, and they followed me. ”Neither of them really said anything to me. It was getting dark, and they jumped me in an alley a few blocks from the loft. They kicked me a few times--enough to subdue me, I guess---and then the big one picked me up and drug me into that warehouse.”

When Mike doesn’t immediately continue, Harvey thinks it’s because something happened before he got there. By the time he manages to muster the courage to ask though, Mike looks up at him. 

“They’d pinned me to the floor and tied my hands, and that’s when they started raving about you,” Mike comments. “Half of what they were saying didn’t make any sense...I’m not even sure they had an actual reason to hurt you. But they knew about us, and they knew they could use me to get you.”

Harvey’s brow furrows, and he’s entirely too confused by what Mike is telling him, because it doesn’t make sense at all. He can’t even coincide it with the events that actually took place, in his head. He opens his mouth to question what Mike is saying, but Mike cuts him off. 

“They started telling me about what they were going to do to you. That they were going to make me watch them hurt you.” His voice is strained, choked up. When he looks up and catches Harvey’s eyes, there are tears in them. “They took my phone and texted you, and when you asked for the address....” Mike shakes his head. “I panicked. I told them they were fucked-up sadists and psychos. That’s when they started beating me up more. They said they were going to make it worse for you, because of what I’d said.”

“But-”Mike raises a hand to Harvey, and the older man closes his mouth, waits. Mike inhales a deep breath, gulps. He takes a long drink of his water. 

“I told them to rape me instead.” The sentence comes out of Mike’s mouth like he’s disgusted at the statement, at the very words themselves. He shakes his head at himself again. “I told them it would hurt you more.”

Harvey inhales a shaking breath, hands trembling at his sides. He wants to dispute what Mike told him, wants to totally disregard it...but it makes sense. It all does. He clenches his jaw as tears flood his vision. He squeezes his glass so tight he half-expects it to break under his fingers. 

“Why?” His voice is ragged, strained from the knot forming in his throat. “Why would you put me before you? Let--...t-...trade me for you?”

“Partly because I knew it would hurt you less to see it happen than to live it,” Mike says softly, still staring down at the bottom of his glass. His fingers are trembling where they’re resting on the glass. He gulps, looks up at Harvey. “But mostly because I couldn’t fathom having to watch them hurt you...watch them strip every inch of the person I know away for a few twisted seconds of pleasure.”

Harvey’s jaw clenches even more, and he’s all but trembling as he stares at Mike, clearly enraged. And then, all of a sudden the conversation is over, because Harvey’s glass shatters under his grip. Shards dig into his skin while others drop to the ground, and he’s barely aware of the scream that emits from his mouth at the glass digging into his palm and slicing through the sides of his middle and ring finger. 

“Shit!” Mike exclaims lowly as he rushes to Harvey’s side, moves the older man’s hand towards the sink. Harvey can’t help but stare at Mike as the younger man uncurls his fingers and removes the shards of glass, drops them into the sink. Neither of them speaks as Mike moves away to grab the first aid kit from over the stove. Harvey watches as thin ropes of red liquid run from the two-inch cut across his palm. He can barely feel it. 

Mike pulls his hand from the stream of water when he’s got all the bandages set up on the counter. He presses a piece of paper towel into Harvey’s palm to dry it, and that’s when the older man finally reacts, seething. 

“Sorry,” Mike says softly he dabs gently at the larger wound on Harvey’s hand. There are plenty of tiny knicks on his hand as well, but nothing that won’t heal on it’s own. 

Harvey wonders if the apology is supposed to extend to the rape too. 

Mike works swiftly and expertly. It’s a far cry from the ragtag bandaging Harvey did on the both of them just a few weeks earlier. Five minutes later, Harvey’s palm is wrapped in a light gauze bandaging while two new band-aids are wrapped around his fingers. 

Mike cleans up when he’s finished bandaging Harvey’s hand, picks up the glass and tosses it into a paper bag before grabbing the broom and sweeping up the smaller bits, and then finally wiping up the floor with more paper towel. 

Harvey grabs Mike’s hand as he drops the towel into the trash, and the younger man looks up at him. A myriad of emotions pass between them, both sorry, both ashamed. 

“Why did you leave?” Harvey finally asks when he manages to find words. “After.”

Mike inhales a shaky breath. 

“Because I did ask for it, Harvey. What you say about it versus what I tell people is splitting hairs,” Mike says. “And your determination for me to feel like it isn’t my fault that I feel the way I do-”

“It isn’t,” Harvey says as he squeezes Mike’s hand in his own. Mike rolls his eyes, but Harvey’s resolves strengthens. 

“Tell me the truth,” Harvey pleads. “If we’d both fought...even if you had ‘let’ them hurt me instead of you, would we have gotten out of there alive?”

Mike opens his mouth to respond, but before he can, Harvey lifts the side of his shirt. The thin silvery scar from the bullet grazing his ribcage is still there. 

“Remember that they had a gun.” Harvey tells him. 

Mike looks back and forth between the scar on Harvey’s hip and the man’s hazel eyes slack-jawed. His resolve is melting--Harvey can see it in his eyes--but the words won’t pass his lips. 

“Tell me they would’ve let us survive. Hell, tell me they would’ve let you survive.”

Mike gulps, exhales a shaky breath. “Harvey...”

Harvey lifts his bandaged hand to Mike’s cheek, winces when the wound on his palm throbs as it touches Mike’s jawbone. 

“They were never going to let us out of there alive.”


End file.
